Is there a quad vs dual track album compendium?

[H-evolve]

Was just wondering if it was posted here somewhere... At least I couldn't find it.

We have that "Which amp on which album" compendium, but was wondering about quad vs dual. It is an eternal debate and at the end, everybody is entitled to his opinion on that topic. I don't think there is a good answer, just preferences...

And, I'm going through that tough decision at the moment. I don't feel like quad tracking is bringing a whole lot in terms of tone in my mixes. But I know it "does something".

I just can't decide wether I stick with it or just simplify things with dual tracking. Was hoping that being able to compare professionnal albums done with either quad or dual might be useful to decide.

Moreover, if you say "well you should be able to tell by yourself if X album was recorded with quad track" well I don't... Sometimes guitar 3 and 4 are quite lower and it's so subtle I can't tell in the whole mix...

Any info on Amon Amarth, Mors Principium Est, Brymir, etc... albums?

 

[henryjarv]

Have you ever tried to track 3 tracks? It can work for some projects quite well.
And you get a balanced mix when L and R are palying the same all the time, and C guitar can play something different, melody or whatever, without the mix losing power from the other side. If I remember right, Soulfly and other Cavalera projects use triple tracking.

Maybe I didn't help at all, by talking about a third option

 

[H-evolve]

Have you ever tried to track 3 tracks? It can work for some projects quite well.
And you get a balanced mix when L and R are palying the same all the time, and C guitar can play something different, melody or whatever, without the mix losing power from the other side. If I remember right, Soulfly and other Cavalera projects use triple tracking.

Maybe I didn't help at all, by talking about a third option

Haha bringing a third option is fine! As a matter of fact, maybe it'd work for us. We almost always have a rythm guitar and a lead playing some higher register harmony. No "super high" like a solo, but you know, maybe an octave higher. So at the moment we go quad tracks for the rythm and dual track for the harmony. Harmony are panned maybe 70% left and right, while the quad tracks are panned 100% and 95% left/right.

One could say it is a lot of tracks, and it's why I'm juggling with the idea of not going quad tracks for the rythms. I just can't really decide. Like most people learning to record heavy music, the human thing to do is to try and copy what pros do, hence the question about the quad/dual compendium

When I'm good enough I'll developp my own tricks At the moment I'm still a noob

 

[nezvers]

Dude, if you don't know then do your own test recording on single riff.
But when it comes on quad tracking I don't like partially panned new pairs because it doesn't sound wide in stereo. I prefer hard pan every track and control volume for second pair to find sweet spot. I recommend quad tracking if you have slower and chuggy riffs, because they will sound fat as fuk.

 

[Heabow]

I think that dual/triple/quad guitar tracking is a matter of preferences depending on the music, project, song and even parts. That without speaking of the player(s) of course. Quad tracking can sound killer on some stuff and totally unpleasant on some others. I personally like quad or triple on hardcore like stuff.

Pan wise, I found that 100%/80% works fine for me on most cases. It adds more depth than two hard panned pairs. But again it depends on the tones and what is playing.

I will try to search in my backup disks some comparisons I've made while starting a production when I have some free time one day.

 

[H-evolve]

Dude, if you don't know then do your own test recording on single riff.
But when it comes on quad tracking I don't like partially panned new pairs because it doesn't sound wide in stereo. I prefer hard pan every track and control volume for second pair to find sweet spot. I recommend quad tracking if you have slower and chuggy riffs, because they will sound fat as fuk.

I did my own tests and couldn't decide, as I was saying. There are pros and cons. And as you point out, on our "slower" riffs it is more obvious that quad adds a very nice fatness. But, on our faster songs, it's more a pain than anything...

And I'm not sure I'd want to go for different methods depending of the song. For sure each song will be fine tuned differently, but I feel going quad for one, and dual for another, is too much of a difference.

 

[nezvers]

If you like quad on slower riffs why not have it? Just automate volume and you have it. For fast riffs guitarist needs to be super tight for quad to sound good.
You are the only one to tell if you want quad or not. It's the same as asking if you have to cut your hairs to a stranger, but in the end you are the one with that haircut.

 

[H-evolve]

If you like quad on slower riffs why not have it? Just automate volume and you have it. For fast riffs guitarist needs to be super tight for quad to sound good.
You are the only one to tell if you want quad or not. It's the same as asking if you have to cut your hairs to a stranger, but in the end you are the one with that haircut.

Well I never asked anyone to decide for me. If that is what you understood from the original post, than you didn't read it right. I really have no idea why you imply I meant that...???

I was just asking if we have any info about what album is made with what method. To have, perhaps, more than my own tests as a basis to take a decision. Sometimes when you are torn between two choices, it helps bringing in more inputs and more info, to have perhaps a different perspective on things.

 

[newamerikangospel]

As far as I know, most albums that have four tracks don't have four tracks consistently, they will use the tracks to add depth to a part (chorus, breakdown, etc). I believe it was on the Mutter album, but Kruspe said something like there were up to 20 tracks on some parts of the songs, and didn't hetfield do a bunch of tracks for the chug parts of sad but true?

I personally find that tracking four tracks with two different but complimentary tones adds a depth and allows for some cool tone shaping, and found that most amps crunch and lead channels really hit it hard when paired. It allows you to mix two tones without all of the mono content if you only use two takes and so,it them between the amps. On my symphonic death metal album,though, I scrapped the 3 and 4 takes because it was too much of a wall for the symphonic elements to try to climb over. It sounded great as just a death metal tone without the symphonic elements, but too dense. So it will literally depend on context of what else is happening in the mix too.

 

[Shinozoku]

Totally supporting the idea of a compendium! List of popular albums that prominently feature quad tracking, and some that prominently feature double tracking, plus the aforementioned tri-tracking or just wall-of-20-guitars.
Emphasis on songs and stuff would work. I feel that Ride The Lightning seems to have some quack tracking going on. Then again, I know that they used multiple mics as well, at least 2-3 close mics, then some room mics and even ambient mics as well.

 

[H-evolve]

Though it doesn't seem so much popular.. (or maybe it's just the forum being every week a bit less active), I got something from an interview with Gojira.

Their latest album Magma is dual track, with 2 mics per track. (I guess a lot of people already knew that).

 

[Pxz]

Yeah that album is dual tracked , i wonder if the way of all flesh is quadtracked , sounds so crushing and precise.
Lamb of God is all dual tracked since their first record with Machine if im not mistaken.

 

[H-evolve]

Yeah that album is dual tracked , i wonder if the way of all flesh is quadtracked , sounds so crushing and precise.
Lamb of God is all dual tracked since their first record with Machine if im not mistaken.

In the interview with Joe Duplantier about Magma, he really talks as if using dual tracking is a new way of doing things that he tried on Magma. It's not so clear, but he says that (maybe not his exact words, but close enough) "For Magma, I decided to only go dual tracks with 2 mics per track, instead of having 4 6 or 8 layers of guitars which would create a big wall of sound". It's not clear if that's what he used (wall of sound) for the previous albums, but that surely sounds like it.